Sunday, February 06, 2011

The Munch Bunch

One of the most impressive developments of the 1990s was the discovery of how to extract every drop of charm from concepts that had previously been twee but delightful. To avoid breaking hearts all over town, I'll present the horrors first, followed by the originals.

By the late nineties, this was The Munch Bunch, 'tood-crazy yogurt shills

But fifteen years earlier, they had been a low-budget but sweetly wiggy puppet show featuring (in this episode) an incredible reggae jam, a weeping onion and some mad Moog incidental music. This is genuinely the same thing.

Another egregious instance of this madness was Sugar Puffs' Honey Monster campaign. By the mid-nineties he had become a faintly sinister character, puffed up not with wheat but SOLID 'TOOD!

This was the original campaign, little short of genius.

I do sense that there is a concerted attempt of late to retrieve the baby in this case, even if the bathwater is long gone.

Oh good gravy, I distinctly remember a Munch Bunch jingle from the early 90's but can't remember where it was from. It certainly wasn't from the pool-playing tweens ad. But the pear from the puppet show looks familiar?UGH. This is going to plague me for weeks.

It is nonsense, unless your childhood was spent in a state that later engaged in widespread book-burning. (Or, one assumes from the normal context of such a remark, widespread burning of puerile eighties toy cartoon tie-ins*).

In this case, you can actually relive your childhood memories for a full ten minutes, including "Banana Rock", the ultimate reggae jam!

I had the Munch Bunch books too, although I preferred The Garden Gang, similarly written by a child but pleasingly coloured in in felt tip.